


Youth

by GoldenDaydreams



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Death of a Parent, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Kid Fic, Protective Siblings, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28369275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenDaydreams/pseuds/GoldenDaydreams
Summary: Moments in the life of Hjalmar An Craite as he and his sister grow up.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this would fit into the 'Find Someone To Carry You' series since Hjalmar and Cerys will show up in it later, but it's also so separated in theme/style that I didn't link it.

Hjalmar is four, and doesn’t quite understand. The ladies say his mother has gone with Freya, but none of them will say when she will be back. He wanders Kaer Trolde looking for her. If she wanted to play hide-and-seek she should have told him first! He looks high, and he looks low. He’s checking under the table when his father finds him, guides him to the bench, and sits down heavily. 

In his arms is a tiny, sleeping baby all bundled in a blanket. 

“Baby brother?” Hjalmar asks, looking at the small tuft of red hair on the baby’s head. 

“Sister,” his da corrects. “Her… her name is Cerys.” 

Hjalmar is disappointed. He’d so hoped for a brother. He grew up on his mother’s stories about adventuring brothers Greyhook and Redhorn, and he’d wanted his own brother to adventure with. 

Cerys wiggles in the blanket, making soft cooing noises. He leans in closer, but she doesn’t say words. He wonders how long it will take before she can talk. Babies, he decides, are dumb. 

Her fist comes free of the blanket, and bops him in the nose. He stumbles back out of shock, and rubs the spot she hit. 

He smiles. 

Maybe his baby sister is alright after all. 

Hjalmar pokes Cerys’ fist, marvels at how tiny her fingers are. “Where’s Ma? I looked everywhere.” She’d been so excited about the baby, he doesn’t think she could have gone far. 

His da runs his hand over his face, looks sad. “She’s gone with Freya, Son.” 

He stomps his foot. “Everyone says she goes but when she comes home?” 

“She’s not. She’s _gone_.” He takes a deep breath. “She died.” 

Hjalmar is a Skelliger. He understands death. His friend Jut’s dad died at sea. Jut cried for days and days. Death means no more. Death means no more _forever_. 

He tries not to cry. He really does, but he trembles, and hiccups for breath, his eyes clenched tight but that doesn’t stop the tears. And Cerys? Well, she cries along with him—at great volume for someone so small, their cries echo in the large room. His da pulls him in close, holds both children as they cry, and cry, and cry.

∙∙∙

Hjalmar spends a lot of his time trying to keep things out of the baby’s mouth. She chews on her blankie, and she chews on his toys. She’ll pick up stones from the floor, and pop them in her mouth, Hjalmar’s finger becoming the next chew toy when he tries to get it out. 

She’s at an age where she crawls around, giggles when he makes faces, does her best to stand while holding onto benches. He likes his little sister, stays close to her even when the other boys his age tease him. She’s still so small, and defenseless. He’s tried to teach her to hold his toy sword, but it’s too heavy, and it always ends with drool. 

Sometimes in the middle of the night, he hears her cries. She doesn’t usually cry long, she sleeps in a crib in their da’s room, and is quickly cared for. Tonight she cries too much, and he can’t sleep through it. He leaves his warm bed to follow the sound. The candles lit gave the room a soft glow, and Da rocks Cerys while she cries. 

Hjalmar climbs up on the bed, and taps her nose to get her attention and makes a funny face, puffing out his cheeks and making his eyes go wide. The crying lessens. She stretches her arms out to him, leaning her whole body away from Da. 

“I think you’re her favourite,” Da says with a big smile, and helps settle Cerys in Hjalmar’s lap. Even though she can hold her head up now, habit has him supporting her neck like he was taught. 

She reaches, holds his face in her chubby little hands, and starts yammering on in her baby gibberish. 

He thinks that maybe one day she’ll tell really good stories. 

Just like Ma. 

∙∙∙

She calls him ‘Yaya.’ He tries pronouncing his name real slow, but she persists. “Yaya, Yaya, Yaya!”

She’s on unsteady feet, trailing after him, falling over every few steps. She’s steadier when he holds her hand, so he helps her walk around the great hall.

“Da?” she asks, looking around. 

“He’s busy,” Hjalmar says, leading her back to the small pile of toys. 

“Da?” 

He sighs. She’s still too little to understand. He tries to distract her with a soft doll one of the ladies sewed up for her. It’s been chewed on, stomped, dropped, and on one night in particular, lost somewhere in the castle where Cerys wailed for hours until one of the servants finally found it.

It does the trick, and she stops asking for Da, instead speaking gibberish to her toy and then to Hjalmar in turn. He leaves her playing with her soft toy, and picks up his wooden sword. He imagines being on a ship, and jumps up on one of the benches, almost falling, but getting his balance back. He runs across the bench, and turns quickly, slashing his sword through the air. “Get back you lily-livered landlubber!” 

He turns again, slashing and stabbing the air as he walks the bench. He holds his blade up in the air after slaying the last of the imaginary foes. “I win!” 

“Yaya!” 

He turns to see Cerys has climbed on the bench, and has her hands planted on the wood, trying to get her unsteady feet under her. “No!” he tells her. She doesn’t listen, her balance lost, she topples to the side. There is a scary quiet second before she screams, getting the attention of their sleeping nanny, Mogdry, who tosses her needlework aside, and rushes over. 

Mogdry scoops Cerys up into her arms, checking her over for injury. “What did you do?” she asks, glaring at Hjalmar. 

“I didn’t do anything!” It’s not fair that he’s being blamed! “She falled down!” 

Cerys calls out for ‘Da,’ and nothing Mogdry does can calm her. The nanny tells him to behave himself and takes her away. The hall is quiet without the crying, or babbling. 

He doesn’t much like the quiet. 

∙∙∙

Hjalmar walks down the coast with a couple of his friends: Blueboy, Dagur, and cousin Svanrige. Cerys trails after them, half running to keep up. She is five winters now, and the ponytail their da had pulled her hair into is lopsided. She slips a little on the ice now and then, but manages to keep up. 

The five of them walk off the beaten path of the coast where they had tied one of Cerys’ hair ribbons in the tree days before. Hjalmar looks over his shoulder to make sure that Cerys was still trailing behind—Da would be _furious_ if he lost her. Assured when she starts running to catch up, he continues chatting with the boys as they make their way through the trees. 

They walk all the way to the clearing, and look at the pile of wood they’d been collecting. Long logs they’d chopped with the ax Dagur was allowed to have, he was the oldest by two years over Svanrige who had a year over Blueboy who had just a few months over Hjalmar, who had four years over Cerys. 

Dagur chops the wood. Svanrige and Hjalmar (along with his shadow of a little sister) locate the trees that are big enough for their purpose, but small enough that they can manage them. Blueboy had stolen enough rope, and had a little bit of experience with knots to make it all come together. 

By the end of the day they’d finally finished the raft. 

“Think it’ll really float?” Svanrige asks, hands on his hips. 

“If the knots are done right.” Dugar looks to Blueboy with a doubtful frown. 

“I know my knots!” Blueboy shouts, hands in fists at his sides, looking ready for a fight.

Hjalmar doesn’t mind watching a good scrap, but he wants to go out on the sea! He starts lifting one side of the raft. “Well, come on then! Let’s test it! Unless you’re all too chicken!”

“I’m not a chicken!” As if to prove the statement, Blueboy goes to Hjalmar’s side, and helps lift. Dugar and Svanrige lift the other. 

Cerys keeps up with them the entire time. It’s not difficult since they have to keep angling the raft to get it through the trees, and then put it down for a few minutes to shake their arms out. The sun is setting by the time they finally get the raft to the lake. 

“We should go home,” Blueboy says, staring out at the water, at the setting sun. “Da’s gonna be mad if I’m home after dark.”

“It won’t take long,” Dugar says. “We spent all day working on this, and we dragged it through the trees! What if someone else gets on it first while we’re gone?” 

“You really think it can hold all of us?” Svanrige asks. “It’s pretty small.”

“I’m small. I goes first!” Cerys says. 

All the boys turn to stare at her at once. 

Dugar nods. “Cerys _is_ the smallest. If it can’t hold her, it can’t hold any of us.” 

“She’s _too_ little!” Hjalmar argues. “She can’t swim yet.” 

“It’s going to float!” Blueboy shouts. 

Hjalmar is outvoted, and Cerys smiles. Hjalmar and Svanrige hold the raft steady at shore until Cerys is sitting down, and then give it a gentle push. Hjalmar holds his breath, but the knots all hold the raft stays on the gentle little waves. 

“I told you!” Blueboy says to Dugar. “I told you I could do it! I told you it would float!” 

The boys cheer, their hard work has paid off. Now they can sneak off to sea any time they want! They have their own raft! They built it all by themselves!

“Hjalmar!” 

The waves have pulled the raft out further into the water. Cerys sat on her knees, looking back to shore. She’s too far out, for them to reach without wading into the water. “Just stay still,” Hjalmar orders her before looking to the other boys. “We need a grown up!” 

“But we’ll get in so much trouble,” Blueboy hissed. 

“Hjalmar!” He looks out to the water, to his sister on the raft reaching out for him. 

The water is too cold for swimming, he knows that, he’s been warned a hundred bazillion times. “Stay away from the water!” 

She’s crying, but shifting back a bit on the raft, staying closer to the middle than she was before. His heart is racing, he’s scared she’ll drift too far away, scared that she will fall in, scared she’ll drown as some kids on the isle do. Da let them roam, but always told them to respect the dangers of the sea, and stay away from the water. 

“It’s okay, Cerys,” he says stepping into the sea, his boots quickly getting soaked. “I’m coming.”

“Hjalmar!” Svanrige reaches out, but Hjalmar dodges his cousin’s grabby hand. “We’ll get a grown up! We aren’t allowed in the water!”

He ignores his cousin, wades out deeper. The water soaks his pants, and raises his arms as the water starts to soak his coat too. The boys are shouting on the coast, but he’s focussed on how cold he is, a cold that is painful, feels like it’s eating his bones. A slippery stone nearly takes him under, but he reaches out, grabs the raft, and pulls it a little closer. 

Cerys’ rubs her eyes with her fists. “I wants to go home!” 

“O-o-okay,” he says, his teeth chattering. He took a step back, and pulled the raft along with him. “We-we’re gonna go h-h-home.” 

The splashing startles him, and a second later he’s hauled out of the water. He kicks, and wriggles, he’s got to get to Cerys, she’s gonna float away, or fall in, or—

“Da!” 

He stops realizing his Da has him around the waist with one big arm, and Cerys is in his other, the raft floating alone on the water. Da walks them back to shore where a small group of other grown-ups have gathered. Madman Lugos has Blueboy by the ear and is dragging him off toward the village. Da tells the other boys to go home, in the voice that said they were all in big trouble. 

Da doesn’t let them go. Doesn’t say anything. Cerys says lots in that new way of hers, rambling in a way that just barely makes sense, words that aren’t quite right in a way that Hjalmar can’t explain. She talks about the woods, and the trees, and the bug in the log, she stops after that. Says nothing of the water. Hjalmar doesn’t look forward to explaining it either. 

Da takes them to the first fireplace in the whole castle, and sets them down, crouching to their height. Only a moment of freedom before they’re both pulled into a bone-crushing hug. 

“Too tight!” Cerys complains, and only then are they released. 

“What have I told you two about the water?” Da asks, the angry voice is back. He pulls at the belt around Hjalmar’s coat, and starts to pull off the waterlogged coat. 

“I didn’t m-m-mean to go in it! We were g-g-going to go on top of it,” Hjalmar stammers through his chattering teeth. 

“You could have been killed. You could have got your sister killed. You’re supposed to keep her safe!” 

He didn’t mean to put her in danger. He’d been outvoted by the other boys. The raft was safe, it had floated. He also remembers her floating alone on the water, leaning too close to the edge, crying out for him. Hjalmar sniffles a bit, doesn’t argue. 

Da sighs, orders an ‘arms up’ and helps Hjalmar out of the waterlogged shirt that hits the floor with a heavy splat. Mogdry comes by with warm, dry sets of clothes, and helps Cerys get changed. By the time they’re both in dry clothes Hjalmar doesn’t really feel much warmer, but it’s nicer to not be so wet. He reaches closer to the fire, clenching and unclenching his aching fingers. 

Cerys crawls the few feet between them, and curls up against his side. Da might be angry, but Cerys is warm and forgiving. 

…

Snow drifts lazily to the ground, adding to the inches already there. Cerys tips her head back, trying to catch the snowflakes on her tongue. It’s her seventh winter, and she’d received a brand new sled on her nameday. Hjalmar wants to test it for himself, it’s why he offered to take her to some of the bigger hills. 

“Come on!” he prods, he doesn’t want to waste time. She can be such a baby sometimes, still all big eyed at the world. If she has it her way, they’ll take hours getting to the top of the hill, and he already has plans to go fishing with Blueboy by mid-day. 

She trudges along after him, proudly being the one to drag the sled, for which no one would find him complaining. He takes the lead, mostly to drag his feet through the higher bits of snow creating a path she can actually get through. 

She sings. The songs are simple, the knitting song, a counting song, and a rhyme the girls sing before they skip rocks to find out how many kids they’ll have. It’s stupid kids stuff. 

He ignores her. 

Ignores her a little too well. By the time he realizes she’s not following him, he’s at the top of the hill, and the footprints leading up are his and his alone. 

“Cerys!” 

She doesn’t call back to him. 

He’s been practicing his swears, to say them with the same kind of heat he’s heard from his Uncle Bran, and even his own father when he didn’t know Hjalmar was around. “Fuck!” It still felt a little wrong to say, like his father would appear from the snowy trees and take him by the ear. No one around to hear, no sled around either. He trudged back down the hill, following the path he’d made until he came across the sled, the rope casually draped over a tree branch, not tied, just draped, like his sister had just asked the tree to hold it for her. 

“Stupid,” he mutters, but takes the time to tie it before it slides down on it’s own. 

Cerys’ footprints veer off, through the dense evergreens and it makes it hard to track her. He takes a minute, but finds her path once more, leading toward a small cave. 

A selfish part of him wants to go back, grab the sled, and take it down the hill—to leave and meet Blueboy for fishing like he’d promised. Something curls up and rots in his gut at the thought of his sister in the cave though. Some caves were haunted. Some were unstable, prone to cave-ins. Some housed bears, others monsters. 

He follows her footsteps to the mouth of the cave, and crouches down. It’s too dark inside to see far, too small and narrow to let in the morning light. She must have crawled inside. 

“Cerys?” he whispers loudly. He hopes this cave isn’t haunted.

“Hjal?” 

“You know you’re not allowed in caves!” 

He hears her, the rustle of her clothes as she crawls closer. The sun glints off her red hair as she squirms closer, crawling through the tight space awkwardly. He realizes why when she’s free and sitting on her heels. Cradled in one hand is a kitten, a tiny, half-frozen thing that looks more like a rat than a cat. 

“Is it dead?” he asks with a good deal of horror. He doesn’t like dead things. Doesn’t share the curiosity other boys have with poking rats with sticks. 

“No. I heard it!” She tucks the cat closer to her chest. “She needs a blankie!” 

He sighs. “We were going sledding, we’re almost to the top.” 

Cerys’ face pinches the way it does when she loses her temper. “She’s a baby you butthead!” Cerys stands, storms off, smart enough to follow their combined footsteps, trampling the snow. 

“What if you’re stealing the kitten from it’s mother?”

“The momma cat was gross and dead.” 

Hjalmar doesn’t want details. It doesn’t seem to bother Cerys much. 

They make it back through the evergreens, back to the sled. Cerys eyes him with that expression she gets when she’ll start screaming if she doesn’t get her way. Hjalmar looks to the top of the hill, there will be other days, but he’s still angry about it. The kitten will likely die anyway. They should have left it in the cave. 

“It’ll be faster to take the kitten down on the sled.” It’s not from the top, but it’s something. Cerys doesn’t argue when he sits at the front, keeping his boots planted in the snow. She settles on the sled behind him, the kitten in the protective cradle of her arms. 

The ride lacks the exhilaration, the fun, the joy. It’s fast, he ends up with some snow in his face, but he isn’t happy when they reach the bottom. Cerys gets off the sled, sniffling a bit, her eyelashes are a little wet, threatening to freeze. The soot coloured cat moves just a little. Hjalmar doesn’t think it will survive the night, but he takes off his hat, and holds it open. 

Cerys takes a few seconds, but when she understands, she gently lowers the kitten into the cradle of the knit hat, she then cradles that new bundle to her chest, making sure the kitten’s face isn’t covered. She sings softer this time, the song their da sometimes still sings to her before bed. 

Blueboy is on the path ahead, fishing pole in hand. He doesn’t even bother to greet them. “Whatcha got?” 

“A baby,” Cerys says.

“A kitten,” Hjalmar corrects. 

“Yeah, a cat baby,” Cerys says. “She’s cold.” 

Once, their Da noted that Blueboy had a soft spot for Cerys. Maybe it developed out of guilt that day they’d sent her out on the raft by herself. Maybe it was the few times Hjalmar knew that Cerys had done her best to deal with the bruises and split skin left by Madman’s fists, or if Blueboy had been even more unlucky, his belt. 

Blueboy didn’t tease her, didn’t push her away, or taunt her like some of the other boys. “My house is closest, the fire is going.” 

“Your da?” Cerys asks, wide eyed, and tense. 

“On a boat, out fishing, won’t be back ‘til dark.” 

Hjalmar knows he’s not going to get to go fishing like he wanted, but he doesn’t complain. The three of them weave through the busy adults who pay them little to no mind. They go off the path a little following a few trails of footprints until they reach the little cabin that housed Madman and Blueboy. As promised, the fire crackles. The home smells a little of wet furs and cooked fish. 

Cerys stomps the snow from her boots, walks right to the fire and kneels before it. The three of them strip most of their snow gear off before they end up too hot near the fire and start sweating. Cerys pulls the kitten out of the hat too, sets her on top instead. 

“I think she’s hungry.” 

Hjalmar grimaces, worried the kitten is dead, but sees a little rise of it’s chest before another fall. Still breathing. Poor thing. 

“Do you have fish? Cats like fish, right?” Cerys asks Blueboy. 

“Hm, yeah, I think so, but do kittens eat fish? Don’t they drink milk?”

“Do you have milk?”

Blueboy frowned. “No.” 

Cerys rubs one of her fingers behind the kittens ear, then stands, and grabs her coat. 

“Where are you going?” Hjalmar asked, he lost his whole day because of this. He wouldn’t let her abandon the kitten now. 

“To get milk!” 

“From where?” 

“A goat!” 

“You’re going to milk a goat?” 

“No! But that is where the milk comes from,” with that, she leaves. 

Hjalmar sighs. “Be glad you don’t have a sister.”

Blueboy neither agrees, nor disagrees. He just tends to the kitten, petting her with the gentlest touches. 

Cerys does return sometime later with one of the ladies from the village, Gretta… or Geoni… or… he’s pretty sure it starts with a G anyway. She coos over the kitten, and does have some milk with her in a jar. 

And the kitten eats. Warms. Moves a little more. Mews. 

Cerys is delighted, dangling her mitten for the kitten to paw at, but mostly she just wants to be closer to Cerys and her warmth. 

Gretta, or Geoni, or _whoever_ leaves them to it once the kitten shows signs of returning to good health. 

“What should we name you?” Cerys asks the kitten. 

“Soot,” Hjalmar says the first thing that came to mind. 

“No. She’s not dirty, she’s strong, don’t be mean!” Cerys smiles as the kitten climbs on her lap. 

“She is strong,” Blueboy agrees, and Hjalmar rolls his eyes. He wishes his best friend would stop siding with his little sister. “A little warrior kitten.” 

“Warrior! That’s it.” She bundles the kitten to her chest, and stares at her adoringly. “She is Warrior.” 

“That’s not a cat name!” Hjalmar mutters. 

Cerys glares at him. “She’s a cat and that’s her name, it’s a cat name!” 

“She has a point,” Blueboy said. 

Unbelievable! 

He can’t stay mad, not as Warrior makes a wobbly journey from Cerys’s knee to Hjalmar’s, and mews at him. It’s not how he wanted to spend the day, but he supposes it’s not bad in the end. 

…

Summers in Skellige aren’t particularly warm. That doesn’t stop the young ones from running into the water barely a month after the ice melts from the shoreline. Cerys swims like she’s trying to beat up the water rather than anything graceful. There is a lot of splashing, and diving underwater to grab someone’s foot. 

Blueboy makes the mistake of doing it to Cerys, and she kicks him in the teeth for his troubles. He comes up for air, blood on his teeth, and Cerys looks apologetic. “I thought you were a drowner.” 

Blueboy doesn’t really look all that bothered. “It was a good kick.” 

Cerys looks proud. 

Hjalmar rolls his eyes, and is dunked under by Svenridge. 

The four of them spend the entire afternoon in the water, splashing one another, throwing rocks as far as they can, diving under water trying to find cool rocks, and Svenridge even finds a oyster. By the time they get out, their fingers are all wrinkled. 

It’s a little silly to think their afternoon of play hadn’t scared away all the fish, but Svenridge and Blueboy had both brought their fishing poles, and Cerys checks under rocks for worms, unflinchingly picking them out of the dirt in the way that made some of the other girls on the isle scream. 

Hjalmar enjoys the quiet that follows. It’s not the adventure, and loud, boisterous play he usually seeks, but he’s exhausted after being in the water all day, and watching the little fishing bobbles float on the water isn’t the worst way to spend an evening.   
…

Fourteen is an age of independence. Hjalmar spends some time on boats, more time training with others his age. He spends more time with his friends, and less time with his sister. The age gap between them is felt most now, he doesn’t want to play her childish games, she’s not mature enough to be out with him and his friends. 

At first, it’s freeing to not have to babysit. Then, it’s a little odd, looking over his shoulder for a shadow that isn’t there. Sometimes, he misses her, but mostly he’s happy not to have her around so much. 

…

There are things he knows at fifteen but doesn’t speak of. 

He knows his father has a woman in his life, it’s not public, but a quiet thing he stumbled upon. It makes him think of his mother, and he wonders if she would be happy that Da finally moved on. 

He knows Madman Lugos doesn’t just swing his fists, but his belt. Like the rest of the isle, Hjalmar keeps quiet, it is not his place, but the marks on his friend always leaves a pit in his gut. 

He knows that Cerys confides in Warrior, her pet cat, more than anyone else. Their age gap had become more pronounced in recent years, and Hjalmar’s friends remained with him, but now that Cerys doesn’t tag along, she is often alone. He wonders if she is lonely, but doesn’t make any move to remedy the situation. 

He knows Liafa murdered her husband. H kind of admires her for it, and those who have suspicions that the death wasn’t natural, they too keep their mouths shut. 

Sometimes, on the isle, silence is key. 

…

He’s eighteen when he realizes his baby sister is not a kid anymore. Blueboy’s eyes are fixated along the shoreline where Cerys and her friend, Yvette, are walking. “I’d fuckin’ love to mount that one.” 

“Piss off, don’t talk of Yvette like that,” Hjalmar says, barely paying attention to his friend, instead looking at the flag checking which way the wind is blowing. 

“Not who I was talking about,” Blueboy admits with a laugh. 

There’s a moment of confusion because if not Yvette then—

Blueboy heads home with a broken nose. 

…

Cery’s is fast, agile, even in her first set of light armour, she beats everyone else up the mountain. There is a reason she’s nicknamed Sparrowhawk, for she jumps and climbs so well it’s like she’s flying. Hjalmar isn’t particularly pleased about being beaten, but he’ll do better next time. 

She beats him the month after too, wearing the smuggest grin. 

He’s just a little bit proud. 

…

It isn’t often that boats try and come through the waters near Skellige. Two boats, both flying Redanian flags. They’re not getting to their destination. Everyone on board knows what to do when they see the crest on the sails in the distance. It’s gone from a fishing expedition to a raid. Hjalmar loves the buzz of energy, is usually excited by it, but this time it makes his stomach turn over. 

Cerys is sixteen, the age all Skilligers start working on the boats. Of course she wouldn’t be a woman kept on shore doing needlework, or baking bread, she’s an An Craite. To her credit, she doesn’t look scared, if anything she looks like she has in the past, before a race, before a practice fight, before a climb—there are dangers, but she’s going to prove herself. 

Her eyes meet his, and she smiles, there is a challenge there. This is who they’ve become, siblings not at odds, but still constantly trying to have one over the other. Hjalmar has strength over her, but she has speed over him, in the end, they’re fairly evenly matched. 

She’s still his little sister. 

When they board the Redanian boat, he does as he always has—he keeps her safe. 


End file.
